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District Court Discipline of State Prosecutor for Failure to Enforce State Laws*

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District Court Discipline of State Prosecutor for Failure to Enforce State Laws* NOTES DISTRICT COURT DISCIPLINE OF STATE PROSECUTOR FOR FAILURE TO ENFORCE STATE LAWS* 'FAILURE of public prosecutors to enforce state laws has evoked in the sev- eral states a variety of constitutional and legislative responses.' In most states a lax prosecutor can be removed from office without resort to cumbersome im- peachment procedures;2 in others, prosecutorial indifference is, in specified in- stances, a criminal offense.3 To this arsenal a federal district court has added a new and unprecedented weapon of considerable political potential-exclu- sion from practice before that particular court. The suspension and disbarment of attorneys for unethical conduct has long been a judicial prerogative,4 and state tribunals generally have not hesitated to * Wilbur v. Howard, 70 F. Supp. 930 (E.D.Ky. 1947). 1. In Colorado mandamus will lie to compel prosecution of peddlers of obscene lit- erature. COLO. STAT. ANN., c. 48, § 219 (1) (Supp. 1946). Georgia solicitors receive rela- tively high fees for gambling convictions. GA. CODE ANN. § 24-2904 (1937). The gover- nor of one state is free to shuffle the state's attorneys around the various districts. FLA. STAT. ANN. § 27.14 (1943). A number of states permit temporary replacement of a recalcitrant district attorney by the attorney general, KAN. GEN. STAT. ANN. § 21-921 (Corrick, 1935) ; N. J. STAT. ANN . § 2:182-12 (1939); WA H. REv. STAT. § 112-1 (Remington, Supp. 1940) ; or by the courts, IND. STAT. ANN. § 49-2505 (Burns, 1933) ; N. D. Ray. COaa § 11-1605 (1943). For appraisal of these and other types of prosecutor controls see DeLong and Baker, The Prosecuting Attorney: Provisions of Law Organizing the Office, 23 J. Cnw. L. & C.IMINOLOGY 926, 953-7 (1933). 2. For removal by the governor, see e.g., MiNN. STAT., c. 47, § 6954 (Mason, 1927); N. Y. CoxsT. Art IX, § 6; by the attorney general, DE.. Rav. CoaE, c.17, § 1 (1935), R. I. GE. LAws ANN., c. 10, § 6 (1938) ; or by some level of the judiciary, ATz. CoDs ANN. §§ 12-609, 12-610 (1939); CONN. Gm.. STAT. § 5365 (1930); OxLA. STAT. Azz., tit. 22, §§ 1181, 1191, 1193 (1937) (after jury trial). 3. ARK. DIG. STAT. § 3340 (Pope, 1937) (non-enforcement of gambling laws) ; KAz.- Gax. STAT. ANN. § 21-2125 (Corrick, 1935) (liquor laws); Mox*r. Rav. Cooa Am., § 11171 (1935) (gambling laws) ; OaFm CouP. LAws ANN. §,23-930, 23-931 (1940) (gam- bling laws). 4. See, e.g., Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335 (U.S. 1872) (threat of violence to judge) ; United States v. Porter, 27 Fed. Cas. 595, No. 16,072 (C.C.D.C. 1812) (fraudu- lently taking client's property) ; In re Snyder, 24 Fed. 910 (C.C.E.D. Tenn. 1885) (fleec- ing relatives of weak-minded innocent by convincing latter he was guilty of crime). See generally 2 THoRmTON, ATTORNEYS AT LAW §§ 758-61 (1914). Constitutional objections to exercise of this disciplinary power have been uniformly unsuccessful. Ex parte NWall, 107 U.S. 265 (1882) ; In re Coffey, 123 Cal. 522, 56 Pac. 448 (1899). On the general question of the constitutional status of the practice of law, com- pare Yeiser v. Dysart, 267 U.S. 540 (1925); In re Summers, 325 U.S. 561 (1945); Mitchell v. Greenough, 100 F.2d 184 (C.C.A. 9th 1938), cert. denied, 306 U.S. 659 (1939) ; Overton v. Los Angeles, 263 Fed. 951 (S.D. Cal. 1920). THE YALE LAW JOURNAL [Vol, 57 impose such discipline on state prosecutors for affirmative misconduct.5 The novelty of the decision in Wilbur v. Howard,( where the district court branded as unfit and struck from its rolls 7 a Kentucky Commonwealth's At- torneys for persistent and blatant failure to enforce state anti-gambling laws, does not lie in its application to a public official, but rather in its extension to one whose only offense was inaction. In addition, as the first instance of such action by a federal court, the case raises the question of the propriety of a fed- eral judge's initially disciplining a slothful state prosecutor. This latter issue is underlined by the failure of two prior attempts in state courts to remove 5. See Notes, 9 A.L.R. 189, 197-200 (1920), 43 A.L.R. 107, 109-10 (1926). Loulsi- ana is an exception to the general rule. ln re Borie, 166 La. 855, 857, 118 So. 45 (1928) (' . the official conduct of public officers is not subject to review in disbarment proceed- ings, for what they do oficiafly is not done in the capacity of attorneys at law, but by virtue of their office'). 6. 70 F. Supp. 930 (E.D. Ky. 1947). 7. To "strike from the rolls" is to remove from the list of those eligible to practice before the particular court. To "disbar" is to oust from membership in the bar of the particular court, thereby producing the same result. Whichever expression is used, such action by an authorized state tribunal automatically bars practice before all other courts of that state. Similar federal decisions, however couched, do not work automatic final ex- clusion from other federal or state courts. This difference in effect between federal and state action and the fact that state decisions invariably use "disbarred" appear to underlie the unexplained distinction between "disbarred" and "stricken from the rolls" drawn by the court in the instant case. Wilbur v. Howard, 70 F. Supp. 930, 935 (E.D. Ky. 1947). The Supreme Court specifies "disbarred." Rule 2 (5), RULES OF THE UNITED STArES SuPREmE CounT, 11 Sup. Ct. Dig. 6 (1939). "Disbarred" is also used in the rules of the following Circuit Courts of Appeal: First Circuit, Rules 7(3), 11 id. at 41 (Supp, 1943); Third Circuit, Rules 8(3), 11 id. at 58 (Supp. 1943) ; Fourth Circuit, Rules 7(3), 11 id. at 257; Fifth Circuit, Rules 7(3), 11 id. at 267; Tenth Circuit, Rules 7(3), 11 id, at 43 (Supp. 1947). "Stricken from the rolls" appears in the rules of the following circuit courts: Sixth Circuit, Rules 7(2), 11 id. at 75 (Supp. 1943) ; Seventh Circuit, Rules 6(2), 11 id. at 88 (Supp. 1943) ; Eighth Circuit, Rules 7(4), 11 id. at 294. The rules of the Circuit Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits contain no reference to discipline at all. 8. Respondent holds this elective office for Kentucky's sixteenth judicial district (Kenton County), whose principal city, Covington, lies just across the state border from Cincinnati, Ohio. A primary duty is to ". attend each circuit court in his district, and prosecute all violations of the criminal and penal laws therein." Ky. REV. STAT. ANN, § 69.010 (Baldwin, 1943). Kentucky also has "county attorneys." For description of the jurisdictions of the two classes of officers, see Commonwealth v. Euster, 237 Ky. 162, 163-6, 35 S.W.2d 1, 2-3 (1931). 9. For the last twelve years of respondent's twenty-year incumbency the court found that bookies had operated openly and that slot-machines abounded in restaurants 'and night clubs. A poll of school children disclosed that 92% of them had seen the machines, 87% had seen others play them and 42% had played them. 300 Kenton County slot-ma- chine operators paid the federal occupational tax on the machines in 1941-2; these tax- payers' names were both published in county newspapers and available at the office of the Internal Revenue Collector in nearby Louisville. Wilbur v. Howard, 70 F. Supp. 930, 933-4 (E.D. Ky. 1947). Although Judge Swinford explicitly grounds his decision on respondent's inaction, his 19471 NOTES Howard, temporarily or permanently, both of which were thwarted by consti- tutional provisions.10 State decisions suspending or disbarring state prosecutors supply precedent for the district court's rejection of several of Howard's defenses, including claims that his constituents were unenthusiastic about the gaming laws1 ' and that disciplinary proceedings must await his conviction of a crime. 2 But the critical mention of Howard's handling of crucial grand jury indictments and his non- committal attitude towards the unproved bribery charge suggest that malfeasance claims may have influenced his holding. Wilbur v. Howard, 70 F. Supp. 930, 934 (E.D. Ky. 1947). Judge Swinford was probably well informed about Kenton County conditions, having been United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky (1933-7) prior to his appointment to the bench. 24 WHo's WHO IN Ai.mnc., 2318 (1946-7). 10. In Northcutt v. Howard, 279 Ky. 219, 130 S.W2d 70 (1939), a state circuit judge requested a temporary substitute for Howard to aid a prospective grand jury probe of Howard's official behavior. The request vas denied on the ground that otherwise a circuit judge could remove a Commonwealth's attorney at will. Previously the same judge had suggested Howard's withdrawal from the inquiry, but the latter declined, labeling himself competent to investigate his own conduct. The present circuit court judge is satisfied with Howard's deportment. See note 33 infra. In Commonwealth ex rel. Attorney General v. Howard, 297 Ky. 488, 180 S.W.2d 415 (1944), an attorney general charged Howard with corruption and dereliction of duty and asked that he be fined and removed from office. This suit was also unsuccessful because the court held that this type of removal from office was not specified in the state constitution. Thus, in Kentucky, impeachment and state disbarment appear to be the only means of removing an inactive prosecutor from office. Because Kentucky requires its prosecutors to be attorneys in good standing, prosecutor disbarment by the Court of Appeals forfeits the offender's office.
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